(A Business & Professional Mentor Program)

1. Introduction
2. Portfolio Coaches
3. 9^th – 12^th Grade Portfolio
4. 7^th - 8^th Grade Portfolio
5. Digital Portfolio
6. Portfolio Showcase
7. Bibliography
8. Appendix

• La Canada Unified School District Goals
• La Canada High School’s ESLRs
• Portfolio Project Pamphlet
• History of LCHS Portfolio Project
• Digital Template for Students
• Digital Template for Staff
• Sample Showcase Forms
• Sample Portfolio Forms
• SCANS Skills

The LCHS Portfolio Project began with a dream that each student graduating from LCHS would have the opportunity to showcase their best work, demonstrate their learning, and reflect upon these accomplishments in a Presentation Portfolio. It was soon realized that the value of the Presentation Portfolio was in the Process of creating it in both paper and digital formats. The educational importance of the portfolio emerges as each student selects work according to set criteria and begins to reflect on their own personal growth and values. After four years of creating and showcasing their portfolios, students come to the realization that many things make them unique and that they have a valuable tool for college and career planning.

The project’s goal was to enable students to demonstrate progress toward SCANS skills, La Canada High School ESLR’s and several LCUSD technology goals (see appendix). Each student is asked to reflect on "where they have been and where they wish to go" with their personal and academic skills as they investigate career choices. The process of collecting, selecting and reflecting (based on established criteria) becomes the student’s portfolio. They look at their gifts and talents in the context of career skills. To increase the students' motivation and provide a real world application, a series of formal interview events are included in the portfolio process.

The original La Canada High School 9-12 Portfolio Project grew to include our 7^th and 8^th grade students. Every grade level from 7^th to 12^th has specific criteria tailored to each age group for collecting and presenting portfolio items. The portfolios are produced in both paper and digital formats. Our 11^th and 12^th grades students are able to use their paper and/or digital portfolios for college, scholarship, internship, and career interviews.

This handbook is designed to share the La Canada High School portfolio story and provide school districts with some tips in developing their own digital portfolio projects. As the world of work changes rapidly in the 21^st Century, portfolios will take on increased importance. Each Presentation Portfolio is a tool for a student to "showcase" his/her academic accomplishments, unique skills, and career interests in a real world setting.

The success and growth of the portfolio project is due largely to the enthusiastic role - modeling of the student coaches. A student’s testimony about the value of a portfolio to them personally is more powerful than a teacher’s words. The student to student process of reviewing portfolio contents and giving words of encouragement is a powerful motivator and learning activity. The brainstorming of possible entries in a category from a student’s perspective helps another student make rapid strides in improvement.

Any student may become a portfolio coach by join the Institute for the 21^st Century, a Business and Professional Mentor Program. Students receive a unit of credit for each eighteen hours of service in this project. Student coaches are trained in active listening skills, the purpose of the portfolio, evaluation methods, and public speaking. The training process is conducted during September and October. A training workshop that emphasizes team-building activities is held for all portfolio coaches on a Saturday.

Student coaches "adopt" a class or homeroom. They present information each quarter and go to the same class each quarter to develop a sense of continuity with the students. Coaches make presentations in teams of two or three. Each presentation takes about fifteen minutes. The coaches distribute a set of directions and leave samples for the class to follow to assist them in preparing their portfolio sections for that quarter.

Students are given several weeks to complete each quarterly portfolio tasks. When the quarter is over, coaches return on a ninety-minute block period to evaluate student portfolios. A coach spends about ten minutes with each student reviewing the collection and giving pointers on ways to improve and give validation for their good work. Peer coaching is an important part of the evaluation process. There is value in having a junior explain to a freshman the importance of participating in activities and exploring their talents and interests. After the evaluation session, the coach leaves the students with an evaluation sheet containing tips for improvement and accolades for a job well done.

Coaches attend weekly meetings with the teacher mentors during lunch. Coaches share stories on what is working well and what needs to be improved. The next quarter’s list of portfolio items are given to the coaches, and they have an opportunity to prepare them in advance so that they understand the frustrations that a younger student could have in the classroom. Coaches assist in the editing of the direction sheets and help improve the process.

Portfolio coaches need to be good students. Coaches will need to be excused from regular academic classes for fifteen minutes four times a year for presentations to their adopted classes or homerooms. Coaches also miss their regular classes on portfolio evaluation days that are ninety-minute block periods. Sometimes the final evaluation has been a review of the portfolio without dialogue with the student. These evaluations can be done after school or on weekends, reducing the time a coach needs to be excused from their regular academic class.

The portfolio coaches also assist with the showcase interview. This is conducted once a year. A student has the opportunity to share his or her portfolio with a panel of community leaders, members of the business community, faculty members and a student coach. Portfolio coaches are trained in interviewing techniques and present the interview lesson to their classes. Coaches show student produced videotapes that highlight the differences between a good interview and a poor interview. Coaches also model professional attire and role-play possible questions that will be asked in the interview. They also give the students tips on using their portfolios in an interview setting.

Student coaches are recognized for their service to school by receiving a Spartan Star certificate, a letter of appreciation, frequent thank you notes and credit for Portfolio Institute participation. Each year the number of coaches has increased, and students seem to see this project as a valuable way to provide service to others within the framework of the school day. Students who are active in sports or other after-school activities welcome this opportunity for service and leadership.

The student portfolio coach’s role has expanded each year. In 1998 coaches were organized in areas of expertise and interest. There has developed a group of students who enjoy working with 7^th and 8^th grade students. These coaches are given special training in speaking and listening skills. The digital coaches are a group of technology wizards who are willing to forge ahead with their own digital portfolios and assist other students in the completion of this phase of the project. Digital coaches have written guidelines and have made presentations at faculty meetings and workshops. These coaches work very well with adults, members of the community and fellow students.

A leadership team was formed which meets once a week. This group evaluates all aspects of the portfolio project. They also play the role of trouble-shooters and sounding boards. As ideas develop, they are shared with the leadership team for their insight and wisdom. If any aspect of the project is not playing well with the student audience, the leadership team provides quick and honest feedback. These students assist in all phases of the project from idea formation, to communication and clerical organization. The leadership team organizes the portfolio "road show" which is designed to explain the project to community and parent groups.

The 9-12 high school student coaches are an integral part of the project and are represent largest group. At least one coach is recruited for each 9–12 homeroom. These students have dual roles in the 1999 - 2000 school year. They are released from class to present the portfolio to social science classes and assist in the evaluation. Eighty-five student coaches have been assigned to the mentors’ homeroom where they will also be trained to assist a homeroom teacher in School-to-Career curriculum, which will be shared with students during homeroom periods.

The items included in the portfolio have evolved during the implementation process. The project began with the goal of training students to save their pieces of best work and reflect on what made them important. The collection’s emphasis on work samples from each class became cumbersome, as well as difficult, to evaluate. Motivated by the digital portfolio grant, considerable time was spent obtaining student feedback, and major modifications were made in the type of samples to be collected. The selection criteria shifted its emphasis to reflect SCANS skills and school wide ESLRs. The list of items in the portfolio will always be fluid to some degree and tailored to an individual’s goals and objectives.

The items that are currently considered to be important to any portfolio in grades 9 -12 are as follows:

La Canada High School’s 7^th and 8^th grade program is organized as a school-within-a-school concept. Each grade level is divided into two schools consisting of four core teachers and approximately 150 students. The project was introduced at a planning meeting of all 7^th and 8^th grade staff. Input was given on the structure and content of a portfolio. Volunteer teachers agreed to be responsible for hosting the portfolio project in their small schools. They would include the portfolio work in their classes and give academic credit for each student’s efforts.

These four teachers became the 7/8 portfolio planning group and met briefly once a quarter with the portfolio mentors to determine the student portfolio items for that quarter and calendar dates. The 7/8 portfolio was designed to meet the needs of the students for each grade level. The purpose of the 7^th grade portfolio was to begin the process of having students identify and reflect on their best work. No more than three items were requested during each quarter. The 8^th grade portfolio became a vehicle to complement the development of "Who am I and what makes me special?" These students developed a section called "Personal Best" which included three areas they were good at or make them feel proud. Awards and certificates were gathered, along with an autobiographical essay.

The current items that are identified for portfolios in 7^th and 8^th grade are as follows:

The high school student coaches played an integral part of the 7^th and 8^th grade portfolio project. Thirty high school coaches became mentors and role models for the younger students. The coaches "adopted" a 7^th or 8^th grade teacher and their students, returning each time to the same classroom. Student coaches explained the items needed each quarter to the students. Samples of correct item format were displayed in the classroom. During the evaluation sessions, the high school coaches spent about ten to fifteen minutes with each student in the classroom. The cross grade level mentoring was most inspirational at these grade levels. The coaches liked working with this age level, enjoying the validation and feedback from students who were most eager to show themselves in a positive way in their portfolios.

The showcase interview format for the 8^th grade was very similar to the one developed for high school students. The coaches used a videotape that was made for this age group showing the differences between an acceptable and an unacceptable interview. Interview questions were modified to focus on what 8^th graders were most proud of and what their interests might be in high school. To provide a comfortable transition to the showcase process and to involve the parents in the project, 7^th grade students took their portfolio home for a parent review.

From the beginning, the portfolio project at LCHS had the digital concept in mind. We did not know how our funding would evolve. We did not know how our school district's technology plan would evolve, but we did know what we wanted. We wanted every student who graduated from La Canada High School to have his or her own presentation portfolio on a CD-ROM. We visualized selected essays, the best exams from math classes, project evidence from social studies, audio selections from foreign language courses, and even video clips of student's lab skills from science. Of course, athletic events would be documented, as would participation in drama performances and music events. In our minds, a digital portfolio would be a "mini-documentary" created by each student.

We applied for a SB 1510 grant in the spring of 1998. Our district's proposal was to provide the opportunity for each high school student to create a digital portfolio. Two insightful technology staff members, Ben Seaberry, our former district technology coordinator, and Lindsay Ward, our library-media center director, suggested that we have students create their portfolios in "html" format. This decision eliminated our search for the ideal portfolio software and offered a standards-based skill set for students. A group of technology literate students and staff evaluated the current portfolio contents and created the first LCHS digital portfolio template in the summer of 1998. The template was based on SCANS competencies combined with the categories we had developed for our paper portfolio collections. The student-staff teams designed the template to be used on a Windows based PC or on a Macintosh computer. They wrote directions for every step so that anyone with limited computer skills could create a digital portfolio. The template directions are accessible at http://www.lcusd.net/lchs/portfolio.

We designed a four-step instructional implementation process for students and staff.

• Step 1 is a template training session. The template is personalized and saved in an individual file on the district's server.
• Step 2 is a peripheral-training session. The digital camera and the scanner are used to save their material to their digital portfolios. Students use the digital camera to take photos of school events for their portfolios. The scanner assists them in inserting documents or certificates into their digital portfolios.
• Steps 3 and 4 are work sessions. Students use their paper collection as a resource for selection decisions. These implementation sessions are scheduled for ninety-minute block periods each quarter. Digital coaches work with one classroom at a time in a computer lab.

After students have been through the training process, they are strongly encouraged to use the computer equipment, digital cameras, and scanners after school in one of our computer labs or on a computer in the media-center library. They can do work at home and bring portfolio documentation to school on a floppy disk or zip drive. If they do this, they need to pass a school security check of their disks, and then they can add their work to their own portfolio file. One computer class instructor encouraged his students to work on their portfolios during class time and several of these students participated in our first digital showcase. Eventually, there will be computers in every classroom, which will provide students access to their digital portfolio file on the school’s Intranet server.

Our SB 1510 grant purchased three scanners, three digital cameras, and it paid for networked computers which students can use to create their digital portfolios. The La Canada Unified School District's Technology coordinator, Ben Seaberry, assisted us with these decisions and purchases. Jeff Watts, the district's Technology Support Specialist, created the individual student accounts with password protection. He manages the portfolio server. He was able to troubleshoot student file issues during our Step 1 template training sessions. Our digital template encourages students to make links to outside sources. We selected Netscape Communicator for our project because it is free, and it promotes successful student interaction. The district also provided Adobe Acrobat software to allow a student to save a document and retain its original format as a "pdf" file. Our computers are equipped with Microsoft Office, but Claris Works or another word processing system would function successfully for the project because of the web-based standards.

We had two additional concerns. Because we will eventually have every 7-12 student on the district portfolio server with his or her own digital portfolio, we were concerned about the allotted memory available. We figured that each student could have up to four megabytes of space for their portfolio file. One digital portfolio coach decided to push the limit of the four megabytes allocation. He was able to produce a creative presentation portfolio within this space limit with graphic examples and excellent links. We were reassured that the amount of space available per student was adequate.

We were also concerned about security issues, privacy issues, and access issues for all these students. At this time, each student uses his/her student number and permanent number as a password code to log into the server. All their work is saved as an Intranet document. They can link to Internet sites, but their files are not accessible via the Internet.

We had our first student digital showcase in the spring of 1999. Students presented their digital portfolios at a computer station in the library-media center to a panel of two-three community adults. They demonstrated their technology skills and reflected on selected items in their digital portfolios. They had personalized the template and selected examples to demonstrate SCANS skills.

Our recent experiences gave us new insights. There was a roadblock in asking all students to create digital portfolios in a short timeframe at school. Student access to scanners at school slowed us down dramatically. We are placing all of the portfolio components on our web site. Many students prefer to personalize their templates at home. A cadre of well-trained helpful digital student coaches is the key to success. The cooperation of our school’s computer teachers has also been critical to student success.

The showcase interview is a real world application. Each student brings his or her portfolio and presents information about themselves to a panel of community and business professionals, LCHS staff and our student portfolio coaches. After a ten to fifteen minute interview, each student is given formal feedback on his or her interview skills and use of the portfolio.

Prior to each showcase interview session, portfolio coaches instruct students on appropriate interview techniques and model professional attire. Students are given a list of possible interview questions so they may select the items from their portfolio to share (see appendix). Our coaches prepared videotapes modeling appropriate and inappropriate interview techniques.

Sharing their portfolio in an interview setting is a fundamental school to career competency. When the portfolio project is fully implemented, each 7^th – 12^th grade student will have an opportunity to participate annually in a showcase interview. Portfolios become a natural interview tool for all of our students.

Students represent themselves with poise and answer questions with confidence, demonstrating a keen sense of what makes them "special" and what they are most proud of in their lives. Students share school assignments, activities, personal challenges and career goals. All students can articulate reasons for their selections. The interview panel members and the students enjoy this opportunity to celebrate their accomplishments.

Our showcase interview plans for 1999- 2000 are the following: